Curious what you all think of Stefan Molyneux, that libertarian philosopher on youtube who supports Trump. Do you think there's truth to what he says or is it merely a cult?
Stefan Molyneux
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I am sure he is pro-found
The Social Contract and Libertarianismhttps://www.partiallyexaminedlife.com/2010/08/03/the-social-contract-and-libertarianism/
August 3, 2010 by Mark Linsenmayer 11 Comments
Unlike pragmatism or the philosophy of mind, social contract theory is not so hot a topic among academic philosophers in youtube land. Rousseau (and Locke and Hobbes) are, of course, part of the canon and so taught as historical ideas, but I at least can't name any big time current "social contract" philosophers like some of the folks I've presented in past weeks here for these other topics.
Something I did want to throw out for discussion is libertarianism and its relation to social contract theory. Here's one of the more coherent videos of several I ran across of this sort:
The commentator here (Stefan Molyneux) claims to disprove social contract theory using bad logic and a bogus analogy. He begins in his "The SC as Justification" slide by mis-characterizing government as presenting itself as an arbiter of morality (whereas of course the relationship between these is purposely complex). Then in "The SC in Action" makes an obviously illogical move of giving some characteristics of the social contract (that it is implicitly made, geographically directed, and requires duties of citizens without requiring duties of the government to citizens, i.e. it's unilateral) and saying that these characteristics imply that "all contracts that fulfill these requirements must also be just." From there, he shows that this leads to absurd conclusions, which it does.
What he's trying to do is give the "essence" of the social contract and draw conclusions from that. This is like characterizing what traits make people count as worthy for consideration in our moral decision-making and then saying "ah, I see your characteristics include horses too!" That form of argument can work in that particular case, but here, the traits that Molyneux gives for the social contract aren't those essential ones that give it its force.
What makes the social contract valid (to the extent that it is; I don't want to actually commit to that) is the fact that we live in a representative democracy. We get to vote, and we have safeguards in place are supposed to prevent tyranny of the majority (i.e. we can't just all vote to kill off the redheads or whatever dumb thing we've come up with), so the government's decisions represent each of us, even if, as is inevitable, we as individuals don't always (or even usually) agree with its decisions.
This is the way that it's supposed to work, and this description points out where the system can go wrong: a government disconnected from public will at various points (in legislating or enforcing laws) or inadequate safeguards for minorities. Addressing these problems is not all a matter of just preventing corruption: there are legitimate theoretical and practical issues to be worked out on an ongoing basis re. how to balance these two goals and what mechanisms best serve them.
So if you're going to complain about taxes, then, you have to do so by saying either "The tax system is unfairly targeting me!" (i.e. as a minority, though maybe the minority is "rich people" or "smokers" or some other group that the majority doesn't feel so bad about squeezing) or "We only have taxes because the government is disconnected from the people," which is arguable re. many specific measures but which doesn't in general provide a way to argue for the illegitimacy of all taxation, which is what this brand of libertarianism pushes for.
Ultimately, this guy and his ilk can't be argued with any more than the anti-pragmatic Baptist minister, as will be clear if you look at his channel. I find extreme views like this fairly entertaining, so long as you can easily escape them; having this guy as your roommate would not be fun.
The Social Contract and Libertarianismhttps://www.partiallyexaminedlife.com/2010/08/03/the-social-contract-and-libertarianism/
August 3, 2010 by Mark Linsenmayer 11 Comments
Unlike pragmatism or the philosophy of mind, social contract theory is not so hot a topic among academic philosophers in youtube land. Rousseau (and Locke and Hobbes) are, of course, part of the canon and so taught as historical ideas, but I at least can't name any big time current "social contract" philosophers like some of the folks I've presented in past weeks here for these other topics.
Something I did want to throw out for discussion is libertarianism and its relation to social contract theory. Here's one of the more coherent videos of several I ran across of this sort:
The commentator here (Stefan Molyneux) claims to disprove social contract theory using bad logic and a bogus analogy. He begins in his "The SC as Justification" slide by mis-characterizing government as presenting itself as an arbiter of morality (whereas of course the relationship between these is purposely complex). Then in "The SC in Action" makes an obviously illogical move of giving some characteristics of the social contract (that it is implicitly made, geographically directed, and requires duties of citizens without requiring duties of the government to citizens, i.e. it's unilateral) and saying that these characteristics imply that "all contracts that fulfill these requirements must also be just." From there, he shows that this leads to absurd conclusions, which it does.
What he's trying to do is give the "essence" of the social contract and draw conclusions from that. This is like characterizing what traits make people count as worthy for consideration in our moral decision-making and then saying "ah, I see your characteristics include horses too!" That form of argument can work in that particular case, but here, the traits that Molyneux gives for the social contract aren't those essential ones that give it its force.
What makes the social contract valid (to the extent that it is; I don't want to actually commit to that) is the fact that we live in a representative democracy. We get to vote, and we have safeguards in place are supposed to prevent tyranny of the majority (i.e. we can't just all vote to kill off the redheads or whatever dumb thing we've come up with), so the government's decisions represent each of us, even if, as is inevitable, we as individuals don't always (or even usually) agree with its decisions.
This is the way that it's supposed to work, and this description points out where the system can go wrong: a government disconnected from public will at various points (in legislating or enforcing laws) or inadequate safeguards for minorities. Addressing these problems is not all a matter of just preventing corruption: there are legitimate theoretical and practical issues to be worked out on an ongoing basis re. how to balance these two goals and what mechanisms best serve them.
So if you're going to complain about taxes, then, you have to do so by saying either "The tax system is unfairly targeting me!" (i.e. as a minority, though maybe the minority is "rich people" or "smokers" or some other group that the majority doesn't feel so bad about squeezing) or "We only have taxes because the government is disconnected from the people," which is arguable re. many specific measures but which doesn't in general provide a way to argue for the illegitimacy of all taxation, which is what this brand of libertarianism pushes for.
Ultimately, this guy and his ilk can't be argued with any more than the anti-pragmatic Baptist minister, as will be clear if you look at his channel. I find extreme views like this fairly entertaining, so long as you can easily escape them; having this guy as your roommate would not be fun.
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I watch his videos. He was my first youtube subscription. He's personally likable to me and we share a lot of the same values and views, though definitely not all of them. I find the channel entertaining enough to watch almost daily.
I'm not familiar with the man, but based on the video posted by @Stu he seems like an utter and complete moron. He attempts to attribute a characteristic (just) from one thing (the social contract) to another (any contract) based on the sharing of a few other attributes which is blatantly false and just stupid. Following such logic, I can easily attribute the color red to oranges because there are other red, sweet, fruits with seeds. Not all sweet fruits containing seeds are necessarily red.
Pure idiocy right there.
Edit: I also forgot to add that his understanding of "objectification" regarding women in his twitter post shown by Stu is also profoundly idiotic. Objectification isn't necessarily about regarding women as objects so much as it is about dismissing, disregarding, belittling, or denying their subjectivity.
He somehow believes that entering a beauty contest means one is to be judged on their appearance for the rest of their life? Her offence happened after she had won the contest, not as a part of the contest. Next, he'll complain that past contestants continue to age and no longer look young so that gives him the right to treat them like shit because they once entered a beauty contest.
Pure idiocy right there.
Edit: I also forgot to add that his understanding of "objectification" regarding women in his twitter post shown by Stu is also profoundly idiotic. Objectification isn't necessarily about regarding women as objects so much as it is about dismissing, disregarding, belittling, or denying their subjectivity.
He somehow believes that entering a beauty contest means one is to be judged on their appearance for the rest of their life? Her offence happened after she had won the contest, not as a part of the contest. Next, he'll complain that past contestants continue to age and no longer look young so that gives him the right to treat them like shit because they once entered a beauty contest.
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@CindyLou
To be clear, I'm not trying to call you a moron. I know you posted you thought him an okay guy. Many people do not closely examine an argument or do research into the things other people say and can mistakenly accept things that seem or sounded like they were intelligently argued. I also haven't looked into any of the other things he talks about. I'm just looking at the one twitter post and video posted by Stu.
If on the other hand, you have studied his arguments and think I am wrong, I would willingly hear and contemplate any counter-argument and concede if I were mistaken.
I think morons are those who are strongly in favor of an argument without looking for counter evidence. They blindly believe want they want and not necessarily those who accept it without strongly considering it. I think those people, once shown what's wrong with the argument, will rightly change their mind.
To be clear, I'm not trying to call you a moron. I know you posted you thought him an okay guy. Many people do not closely examine an argument or do research into the things other people say and can mistakenly accept things that seem or sounded like they were intelligently argued. I also haven't looked into any of the other things he talks about. I'm just looking at the one twitter post and video posted by Stu.
If on the other hand, you have studied his arguments and think I am wrong, I would willingly hear and contemplate any counter-argument and concede if I were mistaken.
I think morons are those who are strongly in favor of an argument without looking for counter evidence. They blindly believe want they want and not necessarily those who accept it without strongly considering it. I think those people, once shown what's wrong with the argument, will rightly change their mind.
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I understood that you weren't calling me a moron.
I appreciate the clarification though.I don't follow him like his 'followers' follow him. I subscribe to his channel on youtube because I find him entertaining and I like him personally. If you ever go to his channel and watch his videos, the recent one he made about turning 50 shows how personable and likable he is, at least in my opinion. He is open and speaks to his subscribers as if each and every one of them are his intimate friends. Some comments he's made about voluntary relationships combined with his charming personality make me suspect that he might be trying to start a cult or maybe he already has. I've never seen the video in question in this thread so I can't comment on it until I've seen it. It's eight years old and I wasn't watching at the time. I'll watch it and comment.
@CindyLou
I apologize if you thought I was taking a swipe at you. It was definitely not my intention and I was quickly trying to explain once I realized that it may have been construed that way. I happen to think you're very intelligent, so I apologize if you thought my comment was somehow directed at you.
I apologize if you thought I was taking a swipe at you. It was definitely not my intention and I was quickly trying to explain once I realized that it may have been construed that way. I happen to think you're very intelligent, so I apologize if you thought my comment was somehow directed at you.
I understood that you weren't calling me a moron.
I don't follow him like his 'followers' follow him. I subscribe to his channel on youtube because I find him entertaining and I like him personally. If you ever go to his channel and watch his videos, the recent one he made about turning 50 shows how personable and likable he is, at least in my opinion. He open and speaks to his subscribers as if each and every one of them are his intimate friends. Some comments he's made about voluntary relationships combined with his charming personality make me suspect that he might be trying to start a cult or maybe he already has. I've never seen the video in question in this thread so I can't comment on it until I've seen it. It's eight years old and I wasn't watching at the time. I'll watch it and comment.
Ah, okay. Yes. I suddenly realized that it might seem like I was indirectly trying to offend you and that wasn't my intention at all. I had taken that assumption as well. That you liked him in general and not that you strongly shared his views. You never struck me as someone quite like that, but then I'm not very familiar with his other videos so I don't know if that was really representative of the rest of his views or not.
Mmm. Do you have that on a t-shirt somewhere? I like it.
I watched it. I agree with you @Matt3737 that his argument doesn't follow. I don't know enough about social contract theory to really talk about it but I do know that he is a libertarian and I don't think there is any reason why the social contract can't be limited and libertarian? What I suspect he's doing is trying to argue against social contract theory of morality because it's basically moral relativism and he has his own Universally Preferred Behavior. He wants his atheist libertarian followers to follow him. Possibly another reason to think this might be getting close to a cult.
It's also possible he's changed his mind which he has on other issues before. This video is so old I couldn't say if he still holds these views or not. He makes so many videos sometimes two a day and they're all around an hour or two long. There's no way I could really pin him down on anything with certainty. I can't remember all of that.
It's also possible he's changed his mind which he has on other issues before. This video is so old I couldn't say if he still holds these views or not. He makes so many videos sometimes two a day and they're all around an hour or two long. There's no way I could really pin him down on anything with certainty. I can't remember all of that.